In today's “digital age,” more and more processes are becoming digital or automated. This is especially true in the financial industry. Over the years, primary methods for payment have evolved from cash to checks to credit and debit cards. More recently, technology has become available that permits for “contactless” transactions. For instance, a contactless payment is a payment where a customer pays a purchase amount without handing a payment card or a payment device to a cashier at the point-of-sale (POS) and without swiping the magnetic stripe of a payment card through a payment terminal (also sometimes referred to as a POS terminal). In other words, a contactless payment is one made using a payment device that may wirelessly transmit payment information to the payment terminal. Although physical contact between the payment device and the payment terminal may still occur in a contactless payment environment, physical contact between the payment device and the payment terminal is not necessary for transmission of the payment information from the payment device to the payment terminal.
Many payment terminals have the ability to read and process electronic payment information such as credit card or debit card information received wirelessly from a mobile device (e.g., a cell phone or other handheld computer) that is brought close to the payment terminal. Mobile devices configured with contactless transaction technology are often referred to as “mobile wallets” or “electronic wallets.”
A mobile device having mobile wallet capabilities may allow a user to use the mobile device's interface to select a payment vehicle that the user wishes to use for paying a purchase amount. Subsequently, the mobile device may transmit payment information associated with the selected payment vehicle when the mobile device is brought close to the payment terminal. A payment vehicle may be any payment instrument such as a credit account, debit account, bank card, or other instrument that can be used by one entity to pay another entity.
Furthermore, in today's age, users have many more “accounts” than in years past. Due to various reasons, such as numerous incentive-laden reward accounts, various “store” credit accounts that offer benefits to account holders, and simply the higher rate of debt in today's society, users may have numerous payment vehicles available to them for a given transaction.
With the increasing number of accounts held by users, problems begin to arise in properly categorizing, sorting, and maintaining the payment vehicles associated with the accounts within a single mobile device. Oftentimes, users desire to use different payment vehicles for numerous types of transactions. For example, a user may desire to use one payment vehicle for automobile fuel to accurately track fuel costs through the year while the user may opt to utilize an entirely different payment vehicle for grocery expenditures because, for example, the particular payment vehicle offers increased rewards programs incentives for such purchases. Unfortunately, frequent utilization of numerous payment vehicles requires the user to repeatedly change the “default” payment vehicle. Furthermore, this practice may lead to confusion problems where the user mistakenly makes a transaction utilizing the wrong payment vehicle.
Thus, a need presently exists to produce a product capable of better managing a mobile wallet such that the desired payment vehicle is recommended or automatically set to be the default payment vehicle for different types of transactions.